


Rebecca, always

by esteoflorien



Category: Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 18:24:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esteoflorien/pseuds/esteoflorien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mrs. Danvers receives a guest at her seaside cottage; post-Rebecca. A collection of ten 100-word drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rebecca, always

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PerilouslyClose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerilouslyClose/gifts).



**I.**

  
Mrs Danvers sees her everywhere: in the woman whose face is hidden by a netted veil; in the woman glancing up at her from underneath the brim of an ostentatious hat; in the woman stirring cream into her coffee and setting the spoon just so on the saucer.

Everywhere,  _Rebecca_.

**II.**

Sometimes, she fancies she hears her voice: girlish and laughing at parties, charmingly breathy at dinners. In the silence of the night, she can recall Rebecca’s voice as only she heard it: seductive and low with her desire.

 _Margaret_ , the voice whispers,the name that few know and none say. 

 

**III.**

  
She expected to feel her absence like a knife thrust through her heart; it is far worse. This is an emptiness, a persistent ache. Her mind plays tricks on her at night:  _perhaps she lives_ , she thinks, caught between sleep and madness.

Come morning, her mind clears:  _she is dead_. 

 

**IV.**

  
She can no longer bear to walk where Rebecca walked, and where she never will again.

Below her, Manderley burns.

She watches from the overlook, having taken all that matters most: the nightdress that still smells of her; the brush with three strands of Rebecca’s hair caught in its bristles.

 

**V.**

She goes to the coast. She has money put away; she rents a cottage on the water. It’s not expensive; the tourists have left for the season.

( _We’ll go to the ocean, Danny_.)

 _Danny_ , she hears, as the wind whistles over the ocean.

( _Margaret_  was for love, for the night.)

**VI.**

  
The woman painting the ocean can’t possibly be Rebecca. Her hair is not as lush; her clothes are not as fine; yet Mrs Danvers watches her.  _Who are you?_  she wants to ask.

“Painting the same scene?” she calls, instead.

The woman’s brush never stops moving; her question goes unacknowledged.

 

**VII.**

  
The woman can’t refuse her invitation now, not utterly sodden as she is, her overcoat providing little protection from the sudden downpour.

Mrs Danvers lays her things - finer than they seemed - to dry.

The woman manages a smile, her dark curls plastered to her head.

“Danny,” she breathes.

  
**VIII.**   


  
“It cannot be,” Mrs Danvers says, but this is Rebecca, with her eyes of brilliant blue.

“Please forgive me, Danny,” Rebecca says, offering words she’s never before uttered.

Mrs Danvers brushes her hand against her cheek; Rebecca kisses her palm.

“My Rebecca,” she murmurs; Rebecca will know what she means.

  
**IX.**   


  
Rebecca offers all of herself. She’s not as she was; her skin is not as taught; her breasts not as full. Yet, she’s beauty incarnate, flushed with desperate passion. She cries at her climax.

And after, her hands and lips roam over Margaret’s skin, leaving only pleasure in their wake.

**X.**

  
Her tears come later, with Rebecca warm against her.

“Don’t leave me again,” Margaret pleads.

“I won’t,” Rebecca murmurs. “I had to be certain I’d be all right; Otherwise you’d have had me only to lose me again.”

Margaret tilts her head up for a kiss. “You’re mine, Rebecca.”

“Always.”


End file.
